In an early August press conference President Barack Obama highlighted the need for immigration reform. “We have a broken system; it’s under-resourced and we’ve got to make choices in terms of how we allocate personnel and resources,” Obama said. “My preference would be an actual comprehensive immigration law. And we already have a bipartisan law that would solve a whole bunch of these problems. Until that happens, I’m going to have to make choice. That’s what I was elected to do,” he added.

CBS News reports that White House lawyers are preparing a defense for Obama to take action without Congressional approval.

The lawyers are expected to argue that Congress has left the administration with too few resources to enforce every law and deport all of the roughly 11.5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. That forces the government to prioritize which immigrants to remove from the country.

Related Questions

Give them the right to vote and full 2nd Amendment rights. You don’t get one without the other. The NRA is building it’s Spanish speaking outreach as we speak.

bob hicks

Yes. I just wish he’d hurry up. He’s been talking about acting alone for months.

kevins

Why not..moving forward is laudable. Congress is willing to do little even when not pressured by the election season. It is also clear that the Prez. would get blasted whether acting decisively or not, so he should act in what he considers to be the best interest of the country and let the other elected officials wend their way to a position that suits them. They would do that anyway, regardless of best interests.

Pearly

Aaaaa…. I got a phone. And Aaaaaa…… I got a pen

PaulJ

If we want something done by the Feds the pres. has to do it alone. On the other hand, the whiteboard video failed to mention the flood of poverty flowing to the US from corrupt southern countries.

Bob MacNeal

Just because Congress is held hostage by an anti-people Confederacy of Nincompoops, and the Judiciary is tipped toward anti-democracy by 4 1/2 regressive troglodytes in black robes, doesn’t mean the President should exercise his Executive power to solve the critical issues of the day.

Gary F

Obama could change the policy on illegal child trafficking that is causing most of this, but he doesn’t want to. That should be the first step. But, he wants these people, more customers for our social welfare system. Move people dependent on government. The more people dependent on government, the more people that you can count on their vote.

Pearly

I don’t think he will do it. If he does he will have to own it, and take responsibility
for it. I don’t think he wants to take responsibility for anything. Plus if he does it he won’t be able to keep saying “Oh poor me I’m trying… but they just won’t work with me”

whitedoggie44

You mean King Obama? He acts alone on everything else so would not expact him and his chicago mafia adisors to respond in a different way Too bad he can’t develop a response to ISIS and Putin. He spends more time worrying about Ferguson than ISIS and Putin. How long before we have a real leader??

Yanotha Twangai

You want a “real leader”? You mean, like his predecessor, who effectively led us into the worst foreign policy blunder in American history (the Iraq invasion)? Or do you mean a real leader like Putin? Wouldn’t that be great, to have someone like that at the helm in Washington? Stalin was a real leader too, as were Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.

Strong leadership is overrated. Clinton’s and the elder Bush’s consensus-building style is much more to my taste. Obama would be good at that, too, except for the GOP’s knee-jerk rejection of everything he proposes, just because he proposes it, even if it was their idea first.

And then there’s the irony of you wanting a “real leader” and then objecting when Obama really leads by taking executive action when Congress does nothing.

whitedoggie44

Don’t let the facts of this failed president obama impact your judgement. Total and complete failure and leader. Ever wonder why Americans now judge him the worst president in the 20th century despite the liberal press endorsment

Yanotha Twangai

There’s something disingenuous about the right-wing’s complaints that Obama’s presidency has “failed” after they’ve tried so very hard at every turn to sabotage it.

Gordon near Two Harbors

I suppose the idiots that are judging him think they still are in the 20th Century. It’s no wonder that the Republicans are a dying party.

Gordon near Two Harbors

So, what do you propose? There is a reason that we were in a cold war with the Russians (Soviets) for over 40 years, and not a hot war. They are not a banana republic. A direct conflict, even at a small scale, would be a real blood bath for both sides. Can you stomach that fact?

JQP

well if the president doesn’t act …. what would the Washington press corp have to report on ?
Cause Congress is pretty much a parking lot for desire and the Supreme Court is the home of the craven.

Jim G

The obstructionists in the Republican controlled House are the real culprits in this tragedy playing out on the southern border. The Senate has already passed an immigration bill. However, with the paralysis caused by the rightist of the right, the President is morally bound to mitigate the plight of children and economic refugees. I give him bonus points for at least trying to address problems the Republicans refuse for wholly political reasons to act upon.

Rich in Duluth

Yes. The Republican led House refuses to act other than passing bills they know will not get past the Senate or the President and they waste our time threatening suits against the President.

The Republicans only have about a 54% majority in the House. That means 46% don’t agree with them. It’s time for compromise.

davehoug

Compromise to write laws yes. Unilateral executive action no.

Rich in Duluth

But Dave, there’s a huge problem on our southern border and the Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they will not compromise. The administration can, at least, prioritize enforcement to mitigate the problem until there is a more reasonable Congress or one of the parties takes control.

omaeel

Yes, he should do what he can. However, the public needs to be education about the arcane laws restricting immigration that Congress needs to act on.

Jeff

I think we should remain a Republic and the Congress should originate laws with the president only having the ability to sign/veto a law…not unilaterally make laws himself.

Gordon near Two Harbors

Ideally, that is how it should work. But when Congress fails to do their job (while being more than happy to collect a hefty paycheck every two weeks at the expense of the taxpayer), decisions have to be made.

davehoug

It has ALWAYS been more convenient for the President to act like he wants rather than how Congress wants. Every President would love to have the “Congress failed to do their job” as an excuse for any action.

Peatbogjeff

Obama’s presidency is collapsing, and everyone knows it. He should not be allowed to foist his values and philosophy on us going solo, which is what he will try as he descends into scandal and loses the support of even democrats.

cdmn

III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

[—]
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
— Eliot

Wide Open Spaces

America has essentially become the dumping ground for the unskilled, teaming masses that have over-populated their own lands. Check out almost ANY imagery in any part of the world that is undergoing social upheaval and you will see MASSIVE numbers of children. You can’t fix stupid. If you can’t even feed or support yourself, what makes you think you can feed and support 3, 4, 6, 10, 12… kids?

Congress needs to realize this unfortunate fact and enact legislation that will ensure the future prosperity of the United States. The age of immigration should be about over. Educate our own youth to fill those high-tech jobs, instead of causing a brain drain from the developing world that desperately needs to keep its own talent, and teach the developing world that fewer people equates to more prosperity.

EdBradly7

The POTUS will act when he feels the timing is right politically or other. He has finally wised up and realizes he can’t count on Regressve to do what is right for America.

Jim, Va.

The question is misleading and presumptive that the White House has legal permission to act alone, when it does not.
The Law of the Land has previously solved the immigration problem, yet the current administration, as well as many previous, are ignoring the laws to suit their personal desires.
“…The lawyers are expected to argue that Congress has left the
administration with too few resources to enforce every law and deport
all of the roughly 11.5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally….”
The resources are there, they just have to be used. They’re called “laws”. Enforce the laws we have rather than create new laws to circumvent and exacerbate the problem.
“… That forces the government to prioritize which immigrants to remove
from the country…” There’s no problem with “prioritazation” when the law is followed and enforced equally, which is, oddly enough, the opposite of what is currently desired.
So the question, “Should obama act alone on immigration” misleads people to think we need new laws, when all that is required is following current law. But that’d be too difficult for an administration wanting to nullify the Constitution.

The delay of unilateral action to avoid electoral defeat in November makes it clear that the president has heard the will of the American people to secure our borders and not reward those whose first act on American soil was breaking the law getting in. He’ll just wait till after the mid-term elections to continue ignoring us.

We need immigration. We need lots of immigration, but in a legal, organized fashion that encourages new immigrants to assimilate. I’m glad we have people clamoring to come here. It means we’re doing something right. We need to teach our children, and our new immigrants, what those things are that have made our country successful.